The YouTube app now has a DM tab

Google has added yet another messaging feature to its repertoire — and this time it’s on the YouTube app.

Dubbed the “Shared” tab, the feature allows you to send videos and chat with friends directly in YouTube. These friends are anyone you connect with via email, phone number or an invitation link.

That’s right — anyone to whom you’ve ever sent an email will now have your channel sitting in their shared tab for whenever they get nosy. With the click of a button, your university tutors, your colleagues, that friend you stopped speaking to years ago: they’ll know every video you’ve ever liked, every video you uploaded when you were sixteen.

The nightmares are endless.

Google has been battling to find its groove when it comes to messaging platforms: it recently replaced Google Talk with Hangouts, and its other messaging app Allo was introduced last year to little response (it currently has 10-million downloads as compared to WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger’s billion each).

It seems unlikely the feature will change the way users chat, but it may just keep them on the YouTube app for a little while longer before eventually heading over to a Facebook-owned chat app for more in-depth conversations.

The tab has been available in Canada all year, and is currently rolling out globally.

Author | Julia Breakey

Julia is a UCT film graduate with a passion for dogs, media, and dog-centric media. If she's not gushing about the new television show that you need to watch, she's rewatching The Good Place (which you need to watch). More